Albert Baez

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Albert V. Baez, Ph.D. (November 15, 1912 [1], – March 20, 2007 [2]) was a prominent Mexican-American physicist. He was born in Puebla, Mexico, and his family moved to the United States when he was two years old. Baez grew up in Brooklyn and considered becoming a minister before turning to mathematics and physics. Baez married Joan Bridge, moved to California, and earned a master's degree in mathematics and a doctorate in physics.

In 1948, along with Stanford University professor Paul Kirkpatrick (1894–1992), Dr. Baez developed the X-ray reflection microscope for examination of living cells. This microscope is still used today in medicine.

As the Cold War arose in the 1950s, Dr. Baez's talents were in high demand for the developing arms race. However, influenced by his family's pacifist beliefs, Dr. Baez refused lucrative war industry jobs, preferring instead to devote his career to education and humanitarianism. He briefly worked with UNESCO in 1951, stationing his family in Baghdad, and later returned to northern California. In 1959, Dr. Baez accepted a faculty position at MIT, and moved his family to the Boston area. In 1960, Dr. Baez accepted a faculty position at HMC, and moved his family to Claremont California.

Dr. Baez was the author of The New College Physics: A Spiral Approach (1967), widely regarded as the leading American physics textbook. He was also the co-author of the textbook The Environment and Science and Technology Education (1987) and the memoir A Year in Baghdad (1988).

After his retirement, Dr. Baez occasionally delivered physics lectures and was president of Vivamos Mejor/USA, an organization founded in 1988 to help impoverished villages in Mexico. Its projects include preschool education, environmental projects, and community and educational activities.

In 1995, the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation (HENAAC) established the Albert V. Baez Award for Technical Excellence and Service to Humanity. Dr. Baez himself was inducted into the HENAAC Hall of Fame in 1998.

Dr. Baez was the father of folk singers Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña, as well as the uncle of mathematical physicist John Baez.